The gingerbread-model of the German city of Rostock was completed on December 2, 2002, in an agricultural market in Roevershagen, Northern Germany. The authors used 800 kilograms of flour, 320 kgs of honey, 2,400 eggs, 400 kgs of almonds and 80 kgs of raisins. The „Gingerbread-Rostock“ lies on 400 square meters and will be recorded in the Guinness Book of Records. PHOTO - ČTK/AP
BEIJING – Attention all Chinese challengers to the Indian with the world‘s longest ear hair (10.2 cm) or the Americans who smooched their way to the world‘s longest kiss (30 hours, 59 minutes, 27 seconds) — your day has come. And this time it‘s official.
The Guinness Book of World Records landed in China on Thursday, bestowing 10 awards on record-breaking people and places and for the first time sanctioning a local firm to look for more. The London-based institution has a lawsuit pending against a Shanghai outfit which borrowed the Guinness tag, said Stewart Newport, the Keeper of the Records. Guinness has signed an agreement with the Liaoning
Education Press, based in the northeastern city of Shenyang, to publish the Chinese-language edition of its 2003 record book and review applicants for future editions, Newport said. „They will be able to sort of be the first point of contact with the Chinese people if they wish to set a Guinness World Record,“ he said before a ceremony at the Great Hall of the People. He named the 5.2 hectare structure, home to China‘s legislature, „the largest building used as a theatre“. It has room for 10,000 and is used as a cultural centre when not hosting Communist Party congresses.
Guinness first published its record book in 1955 after the then managing director of the Guinness Brewery, Sir Hugh Beaver, wanted to settle an argument during a hunt about which was Europe‘s fastest game bird, the grouse or the golder plover. The reference now claims to be world‘s best selling copyrighted book with sales of more than 94 million copies in 37 languages — only the Bible, not exclusively copywritten, has sold more.
Most of China‘s new record-holders were long overdue. They include athletes like diver Fu Mingxia, who became the world‘s youngest sporting champion at the tender age of 12 in 1991 and is unlikely ever to be beaten — the minimum age for major competitions is now 14. Bangda Airport in the Himalayan region of Tibet has Guinness‘s stamp for the world‘s highest runway — 4,739 metres above sea level. The 728-metres-long covered walkway at Beijing‘s Summer Palace, built to keep Qing Dynasty Empress Dowager Cixi (1835-1908) out of the rain, is the longest on the globe. And since July, 1980, a movie house has been screening the classic „Love on Lushan Mountain“ four times a day, everyday, to tourists in the picturesque Jiangxi province setting which gave the film its name. Guinness researchers took more than two months to determine to their satisfaction that no other theatre had continuously shown the same film as long. „‘A Clockwork Orange‘ has been running (at a theatre) in Paris … but not for a long enough duration“, said Newport.
Still, China may soon set whackier records. A man who bungee jumps out of moving helicopters announced his intention to attempt to enter the Guinness book at the news conference. „Obviously the huge population here is an untapped resource for records,“ Newport said. Reuters
